BEACON – "People don't know how traumatic re-entry into normal life is for service members and their families," said Sabine Meyer, co-director of Fovea Gallery in Beacon.

Fovea's latest exhibit is the emotional and compelling photography exhibition "War & Memory," a compilation of works taken by photojournalists and veterans documenting the struggles of America's returning soldiers. The show runs through Sunday.

The exhibit is a capsule collection of photographs from the nationally recognized public service campaign, the Homecoming Project, which uses visual media to bring veteran combat issues out in the open. The project was founded by photojournalist Erin Trieb, whose work is also featured in the Fovea exhibit.

"We included the word 'memory' in the title because so much of what returning vets are facing is what lives in their minds, the memory of the war they just fought. What's in their mind is what affects the way they live their lives today," Meyer said.

Meyer noticed that what military members and veterans face when they come home is not widely covered in the media. When she heard that Trieb, with whom she was familiar, had started the homecoming project, she said it made sense to bring it to the gallery.

Meyer co-founded the nonprofit gallery with photojournalist Stephanie Heimann in 2007. Fovea's mission is to educate the public about what's going on in the world using photojournalism and documentary photography.

"It's all about visual literacy. This is such a visual world now — and especially for the younger generation — they are learning about everything through pictures and visual media," Meyer said.

The exhibit was curated to focus on the war at home. Part of the Homecoming Project body of work was taken by photographers in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are also photos depicting returning service members and their families coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, homelessness, brain injury and suicide.

"Because there was a lot of work by so many different photographers, I wanted to have individual stories told by specific photographers about a specific person and what they were going through," Meyers said.

The main wall of the 800-square-foot gallery has three large images telling one story, another wall has various images telling two different stories. Meyer said a third wall has a grid of single images all by different photographers, but with common themes, such as soldiers with prosthetic limbs, soldiers coming home and going back to war or spending time with their children.

Meyer said the reaction to the exhibit has been intense. "People are very emotionally touched by the meaning and stories we have, even if it's one picture," she said.

"These soldiers go to potentially give their lives for our country, and these huge issues go underreported. ... Without taking sides, it's just their reality. Everybody loves the idea of a war hero, returning home to all the accolades and being put on a pedestal ... but there's also a lot of hurdles and pain to get over with that return," Meyer said.